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In 2017, I visited New York City for the first time, and while we were there we visited the ‘Submarine Growler – The Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum’. One of the main attractions of this exhibition was, in fact, a decommissioned nuclear cruise missile submarine known as the USS Growler (SSG-577).

This unusual conventional, diesel-electric submarine was developed by the US Navy in the early 1950s created to carry the Regulus I Cruise Missile, which also was on display proudly and visibly atop the Growler. This particular submarine was only one of a pair, as the US decided to instead develop the Polaris missile program.

Until I visited this submarine, nuclear missiles and nuclear submarines had only been something I had seen online or within books. Something I read about. It was jarring to see for the first time, with my own eyes, the very real (although decommissioned and outdated) nuclear deterrence which still patrols our seas.

On the tour, the guide proudly recited the American history of nuclear weapons and their role within the Cold War and ‘overcoming’ the Soviet Union. We were shown smiling photographs of the submarine crew standing outside of the ‘Missile Check Out’ sector and the ‘Torpedo Room’. Outside of the submarine, an information board told us that the submarine was developed to ‘defer the Soviet Union from launching an attack on America’. Within the submarine, the information boards also told us that the missiles kept within the submarine were ‘for defense’.

It was interesting to me to still see the policy of deterrence displayed and advocated within a public space, and a public nuclear submarine no less. The proud displays of US nuclear missiles contrasted with previous ‘nuclear’ exhibitions I have seen in Britain – which were usually those within bunkers or discussed the legacy of peace or fear.

Overall, it was an interesting and enlightening experience which anyone interested in America’s nuclear and Cold War history should visit if they are ever in New York. I guess overall the most startling aspect of visiting the submarine was the thought of standing within a nuclear submarine, capable of holding 4 missiles, which was now docked in one of the most populated cities and has become a tourist site. Although I know that the submarine and the displayed missiles have long been decommissioned and are safe for public viewing, I can’t help shaking the feeling of anxiety of being so close to one of the world’s most powerful weapons in such an enclosed tourist space.

In 2018, the methodology of oral history is changing rapidly. With new data protection laws, anxieties over privacy, the development of technology, and perhaps most interestingly, the increasing presence of ‘external’ and ‘virtual’ memories.

We conduct and use oral history interviews, historians must consider the new channels of knowledge that exist in the 21st century and the ways in which these inform and influence the interview. Through Google, participants are able to ‘fact check’ themselves; through VR, participants are able to visit places and experience the Cold War even though they weren’t physically present; and through new privacy anxieties, the processes and ethics of oral history must change to ensure the protection and confidentiality of participants.

They are in the news everywhere at the moment. How does this change how we can understand nuclear anxiety as a historical emotion? How can we understand and untangle an emotional response which isn’t just experienced in the past, within the context of the Cold War? When an emotion transcends time, should we treat it differently? How can we unpick the emotions which were felt in the past and are also being felt right now in the present?

Arguably, nuclear anxiety isn’t just an Cold War experience. It has become something we experience now, in the present. How can we understand something that is not only remembered in the past, but experienced in the present?

Just as it was during the Cold War, nuclear anxieties and fears have once again appeared in popular culture, and public news and concern. The popular press, across the world is reporting speculations about nuclear war, how to cope and survive nuclear war, even using 1980’s British government advice from Protect and Survive. The BBC even published a game for children in 2016 titled how to survive a nuclear bomb. Just as it was in the 1980s, we are once again seeing ‘World War Three’ pasted across headlines of newspapers across the world. I mean just look at these headlines from the last two years:

So could we argue that we are seeing a ‘second wave’ of nuclear culture? Perhaps. In the past 5 years or so, nuclear weapons have not only appeared in our news, but in our culture in new and invasive ways that simply didn’t exist in the Cold War. Film are using nuclear technology as plot devices, such as the horror movie Chernobyl Diaries. Or the 2018 action film, Mission Impossible: Fallout. The recent fame and popularity of Marvel movies have also brought nuclear and radiation themes back into public culture, you know like nuclear weapon themes in Captain America, Bruce Banner becoming the Hulk through radiation. I know these things have been around for years, but the sheer popularity and success of the Marvel Cinematic universe have brought this back into public discourse. Even one of their more recent films, Black Panther – and this isn’t a spoiler if you haven’t seen it yet, but in the beginning of the film they tell a story about the chaos of mankind, and there is the image of a mushroom cloud as these words are said. It is also interesting to note the framing of the mushroom cloud. The camera first looks towards a slave ship and then turns to a battle, showing tanks and warfare. In the background, the mushroom cloud appears, framing the overlooking the scene of battle.

Gaming is another modern media in which nuclear weapons are appearing in public discourses, games like Fallout 4 ,Wolfenstein, and FarCry 5 use nuclear weapons and their destructive power as key plot points. And just to really stress exactly how many more people are becoming worried about nuclear weapons, here we can see a graph for ‘hits’ on a website called NUKEMAP. So NUKEMAP is a website which lets you ‘drop bombs’ on places and see what would happen. The creator Alex Wellerstein tweeted that he usually sees spikes in people using the site, but last year, people were consistently using it. Somewhere between 50,000 and 100,000 people were clicking on it every day.

Twitter is of course another platform that simply didn’t exist in the Cold War that exists now and is used to express and also causes nuclear anxiety. So, as I’m sure most of you know, the President of America likes to tweet, and he often tweets about nuclear war, and America’s nuclear capability. In 2018, instead of talking about a ‘nuclear button’ we now talk about a ‘nuclear tweet’ which will result in World War Three.

Another way in which nuclear anxiety is expressed in 2018 which didn’t exist in the Cold War, are memes. So, for those of you who don’t know, memes are images usually with text which tell a joke, usually satire and these go vital and appear all over the internet and social media. Here we see people dealing with anxiety using humour. Or at the very least people are using the internet to communicate emotional responses to nuclear weapons.

But why does this matter to researchers?

Well, oral histories try as they might don’t just research the memories and the pasts of people, they also gain an insight into the present self of that particular person. Our memories, stories, and pasts are forged by the people we are today, and of course also influenced by what we see in the news, popular culture, and online. With hindsight, we are able to look back upon our memories and reconstruct them within what we are currently feeling. Thus, when we research nuclear anxiety, an emotion that was experienced and is being experienced, we are not only looking at the past, but also the past-in-the-present, within the present self.

We need to consider these cultural shifts that are happening, as this may alter the ways in which people talk about and remember the Cold War as they use their present self to frame and construct their past self.